FRED S. NAIDEN, formerly New York City Transit Authority Employee #4046, is now professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His many books include Ancient Supplication (2006), Smoke Signals for the Gods (2012), and Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great (2018).

"Blending memoir with institutional history, this fast-paced, edifying account elicits fresh appreciation for the workers who keep New York City moving. It's a ride worth taking."

-- "Publishers Weekly"

"A vivid, ground-level, often funny view of what it was like to work on the New York City subway during the 1980s, when underfunding and neglect led to startling levels of decay and chaos, and what it was like to live in the pre-gentrified city. Along the way, motorman-turned-historian Fred Naiden provides a rich, iconoclastic history of New York mass transit."

--Joshua B. Freeman "author of In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966"

"A gripping, often heartbreaking account of transit workers working in the tunnels under New York City, moving millions of souls each day. Fred Naiden worked on the New York subways as a young man, and Railroaded is a memoir of the deplorable conditions he and thousands of others worked in, combined with a sardonic history of the crazy quilt of subway lines that never quite became a system."

--Jack Metzgar "author of Striking Steel: Solidarity Remembered"

"A compelling, colorful book. An instant classic of labor and transportation history."

-- "Library Journal, starred review"

"[Naiden] lyrically recount[s] the lousy working conditions, colorful passengers, and union fights to protect transit workers."

-- "Working-Class Studies Association"

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Pub date: 2026-04-14

Length: 274 pages